Second Debate: Instand Analysis

No game changer tonight. Obama looked confident and presidential with McCain earnest and intense. Neither of them exhibited the warmth of a Bill Clinton of George W. Bush in his prime. That gives the win to Obama. The race isnt over by a long shot. We could still have an October surprise. One of the candidates could commit a major gaff. Certainly some will try to play the race card; a stunt that over the centuries has an excellent track record. Heres my suggestion to John McCain for a real game changer. Dump the appeal the GOP base. They will vote for him simply due to Sarah Palins presence on the ticket. Go back to the John McCain of 2000. Reboard the old Straight Talk Express. No cheap shots, just tell the truth about America and the predicament we are in. Acknowledge that Bush bungled the big job. Few will disagree. Talk to people of both parties just like he did just a few years ago. He was a Teddy Roosevelt moderate Republican for the first fifty-one years of his life. Dont deny it. Revel in it. Thats McCains best shot to pull out a win while retaining his old reputation for integrity. Hed should give it a try at the next and last presidential debate set for next Wednesday, October 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead on Long Island, New York.

Aside. My twenty-five year old son, Alex, watched the debate with us tonight,. In the midst of one of the exchanges, he exclaimed McCain isnt wearing an American flag lapel pin! It was shockingly true. Is there any doubt these are dark times.

3 Responses to Second Debate: Instand Analysis

Let’s face it.Obama is a confident student government type who has not walked the walk but can talk the talk. McCain is not an academic leadership type. He has walked the walk but has difficulty talking the talk.

McCain brings to mind the intrepid body punching Rocky Marciano in the boxing ring i.e. bloodied, bashed and yet defiant. Whereas, Obama is like Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr Olympic Champion aka Muhammad Ali Heavyweight champion. He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Historical note: both were successful.

The debates are pretty much superfluous because the so called “race” is pretty much over barring an outbreak of self-destructive behavior by either candidate.

Obama has done well distancing himself from Bill Clinton who with his buddy Franklin Raines CEO of Fannie Mae made the present economic mess possible in 1999 via an executive decree easing credit requirments for home loans to the heretofore uncreditworthy in order to “increase ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers”. Ironically, Obama is the major beneficiary of this Clinton economic disaster in his race for President. Obama may be the definitive Teflon candidate.

Meanwhile, McCain motors on apparently oblivious to the uneasiness politically middle of the road Americans have with Obama’s high risk, fast track political path of community organizer, one do-nothing Senate term to President.

The success of the Viet Nam era street warfare protest has created today’s omnipresent political zeitgeist wherein to serve in the military is not necessarily an honorable profession, but selective observance of the nation’s laws is. John McCain cannot win in today’s political atmosphere where Bill Ayers the co-founder of the muderous bombers Weatherman Underground is now a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This is the same fellow Southside Chicago resident/political activist and fellow Woods Foundation boardmember Bill Ayers who advocated violent overthrow of the US as leader of the radical left-wing SDS and told his followers to “go home and kill your parents and end their capitalstic lives”. All said while John McCain was being tortured in a Hanoi prison.

Today Obama leads John McCain in the polls. This tells us all we need to know about what we have become.

Except for the question about “how do you know what you don’t know?”, the questions, and answers, were predictable. It made the debate predictably boring, which I suppose works for Obama.

It would be interesting to see McCain present himself as he did in 2000. If you are going to run for president you might as well be yourself. If you get elected you can claim a mandate for being yourself as President. McCain returning to being a maverick would offer a contrast to Obama who, I don’t believe, has ever strayed from the Party Line. Not even a Sister Souljah moment.

Obama has so successfully distanced himself from Franlin Raines that Mr. Raines is on the Obama economic advisory team. I hope Mr. Raines will share some of his nine-figure severence package, but then I am a Giants fan and always hopeful.